An interview with Personal Cinema.

Katerina Gregos is an independent curator and critic.
Personal Cinema is a collaborative group.
Its core members are:
Maya Bontzou,Andy Deck,Dimitris Dokatzis,Stelios Giannoulakis,Vassilis Kokkas,
Nikolas Kozakis,Ilias Marmaras,Panos Papadopoulos,Yannis Scoulidas,
Alexandros Spyropoulos,Stewart Ziff.

 

with idea, stylistic convention and the expressive manner of solo authorship. ...

Personal Cinema is a space of discourse & exchange.

Ilias Marmaras :  Part of the artistic practices as perceived within the frame of P.C is to put

(constantly ?) the question of the possibility of group space as a re-examination of the

necessities of artistic and cultural identity. If 20th century art practices resulted in

blurring art and life, the artists and the public in an orgy of ''art consumption'',

cultural ''cleansing'' and demand specific releases from roles and myths that keep art

practitioners of any kind and any media, from being able to work in the fluid stream of

the dominant global networks. The role of the individual either as artist or as spectator is

to be reconsidered and there are no particular disciplines in the schools of fine arts that

pose by definition the necessary arsenal for those purposes.

out of the necessity to address some particular problems associated with the

production, exhibition and distribution of new media. What do you think these

Stewart Ziff :  works of new media have no guarantee of longevity to their presence either as

object or manifest experience, being as they are, dependent at any time on a relationship

to certain technologies 'of the moment' ... it is not possible to apply old strategies of

economy that invest in the archival stability of the work of expression to support activity,

exhibition and presentation – this “necessity” you ask about arises in part from the matter

of there being nothing intrinsic to 'collect', disseminate and formally critique as "objet

d'art".

Ilias Marmaras :  Well.. there are many problems related to this question, concerning both ‘’old art’’

practices and new media ones. P.C tries to focus within some of them. For instance,

technological innovations have established new rules for engagement with a public that

has become accustomed to increasingly frenetic and effortless media. The amply

demonstrated utility of the new media for the purposes of marketing now motivates

creative practices that short-circuit, parody, deflate, and digress from the imperatives of

consumption. While relevant distribution systems are clearly in a state of flux, historical

parallels with the emergence of film and radio would lead us to believe that this fluid

condition will not last. What would it mean for digital media and distribution systems to

assume a stable configuration? Would such a configuration be something other than an

apotheosis of marketing? Would it more resemble extreme sports, violent video games,

or the archive of artifacts that are conventionally known as cinema? (see more at PC’s

distribution systems text.)

Stelios Gianoulakis :  Distribution structures tend to violently enclose creativity in forms that may use

some kind of artistic pretext but generally remain determined by a web of interests clearly

detatched from the need for artistic expression itself. Turning this situation on its head,

P.C. uses the idea of the network itself as the material to be reprocessed, articulated and

structured within the process of artistic creation.

 Katerina Gregos :  How would you describe your working method both in terms of the use of new

media and as a collaborative group?

Alex Spyropoulos :  The line that differentiates the two mentioned factors is obscure. The new media

working method is the one, which dictates the collaborative work. There are so many

areas for work within the multimedia that it is certainly not a one-man-show. Of course

this doesn't mean that it's easy to work as a group, especially when we are not using any

particular working method.

Stewart Ziff :  entropic ! ...akin to cinema, but not cinema, akin to broadcast, but not broadcast,

akin to theatre, but not theatre, akin to soccer, but not soccer, akin to rock'n'roll, but not

rock'n'roll. Each player in the group contributes their differing ideas as vectors of action

and perspective, & their varying skills with craft & studio practice to project & enterprise

(a shifting whole of moving boundaries). We recognize implicitly that no one is skilled

in all the areas of practical necessity with the tools and technologies of new media ... it is

the collective capital of skill that allows us to develop potentially mature work.

Ilias Marmaras :  New media, are technological products ,thus, to my point of view, they belong to

the big family of ‘’machinery’’ of the western world that had been invented and evolved

in the middle of the battlefield. It is not without a meaning that in English the word

shooting is used to describe both a gun’s action and a camera’s function.

There is no space for authors (auteur) in such a field. New media artists are editors

engaged in a large context that demands a permanent status of interrelations.

Sometimes fights or civil wars within the group of people involved happen too.

Just to give an example:’’ Alex stop putting your name always first at the answers line.’’

Stewart Ziff  :  … akin to kindergarten, but not kindergarten !

 Katerina Gregos :  Can you briefly outline some of your previous projects 

and their principal areasof interest.

at the New Media Lab, is a multi-disciplinary project which fuses the

visual and performing arts and the use of new media; it makes use of the formal

characteristics of the epic adventure video game as a metaphor for the geo-political

"games" that occur in reality, with a focus on the Balkan region. What does the

project consist of and how does it operate? How does it fuse experiment, critique

and play?

Alex Spyropoulos  :.....The Balkana city is full of critique primary focusing on the internal structure of

the Balkan territory, the relations with the internal and external "other", the outside

pressure and intervention. This last argument is the argument that makes the Balkan

reality very similar to the structure that is used for the construction of a video game, since

Balkanism is one of the primary objectives of many strategic imaginary constructions.

That's why the video game approach is essential to understanding and communicating

with the Balkan territory -especially if you transform the metaphor to a god like video

game (*). The balkana city is trying to focus on many factors that transform and create

the Balkans: all the empires that ruled the area from the Byzantine era to the current

Occidentalism, the crossroad of the religions, the struggling for self identification, the

social whole that is excluding the person and many more. The new media is just a vehicle

with G.P.S.(Global Positioning System).

(*) Where the player plays with the avatars while s/he is trying to conquer the world.

Stewart Ziff  : a Babel like world of multi-linguistic, multi-theocratic, oppositional forces in

which there are no evident pathways to any evident goals and in which there is a no

obvious distinction between either 'good' or 'bad' and constructive or destructive action.

the heroic and the despotic become one in labyrinth of ever shifting historical reference.

Ilias Marmaras  : The so-called “New Media” are mainly the new medium of administration of

memory in general. The Balkans or in other words – depending on the circumstances-

South-Eastern Europe and the issue of administrating memory, the policy of this

administration, to be more exact, draws its origin from the global recess of the beginning

incorporating fresh forms of political empowerment, which initially attempted to

encompass them in order to manage the local crisis’s. The necessity of the creation and

the sustainability of this policy of these permanent national crises, owes its existence to a

failure. If the Balkans were in historical perspective, the peak of the epic of the Ottoman

Empire, then they were respectively the essence of European failure; of the permanent

and obvious incompetence (inspired by Hegel) of the plans of central Europe to impose

and manipulate a mosaic of states over a pre-existing mosaic of nations.

From the times of sovereignty, when the empires were fighting for territorial control,

alternating their action moves (turn based action), underlining borders and creating

nationalisms (while territorial morphology and distances were important factors in the

process of the game) until the star wars of today, the Balkan nations seem like eager

digital avatars, doomed to re-birth in an arena that some times reminds us of the arena of

whole change borders, languages and religions so many times. A platform that records

this psycho-geography can be easily found in one of the categories of video games,

Yugoslavia in the 90s, adds more levels in the imaginary production of history.

the pre-election debates and in general in the aims of the local barons. Games that suit

and with the objective of a quick adrenalin rush accompanied by a respective spectacle.

To resume, before video games appear as a new platform that fuses different disciplines

of representation, existed as mechanism of thought and culture production. Balkan mall

video game like platform that we create, has the ambition to be a tool of investigation of

Katerina Gregos  : Though employing universalising new media tools, the project has a very

specific local character. Apart from the desire to challenge dominant

historical narratives associated with the Balkan region what other issues

does the work aim to address? How does the notion of media bias - one of

the key concerns of Personal Cinema - come under scrutiny?

Alex Spyropoulos  : Certainly there is a local character to the project "The making of Balkan wars: The

game" but we shouldn't forget that some issues that

personal cinema is considering about this project apply in many circumstances.

identities is the same from the ancient times. The linguistics of the mass media at the

periphery have long been applied with exactly the same way (and pepper).

Stewart Ziff  :  It is important not to over emphasize this matter of the 'universalising' character.

the issue has more to do with the condition of potential iconography defined within the

visual state of new media tools as defined by the strategies for their application in a

corporate mass media context. it is mostly 'not' an intrinsic condition of the tools that they

are universalising - the issue of addressing biased historicism is a matter independent of

these tools of new media - this despite a significant biased condition in the common

products from hollywood and kyoto in the games and movies of popular culture. We seek

to distinguish in our work between the formal matters of the tools we use and the

discourse through which we explore social & political issues.

Ilias Marmaras  :  By examining the conditions under which this media bias is formed.

organization and production. Talking about media bias is somehow putting the question:

why western cultures are based so much at the representational? What historical

necessities had formed this fact? War maybe? The specific means of war as they have

been formed and perceived in the west? Alex stop putting your name always first!!

 Katerina Gregos :  As I understand it, players and spectators have the opportunity to

learn how to "behave" and "act" in a simulated Balkan reality. How does this

happen?

Alex Spyropoulos :  Had it been easy for a player to learn how to behave and act in a simulated Balkan

Reality from this game, then there wouldn't be any Balkan problem at all in the region.

We have often faced very sensitive matters concerning minorities and identities while we

creating the game. If one considers that around 700.000 people died in the past decade in

the former Yugoslavia, it becomes apparent that it is impossible to learn how to behave

and act in the region without actually leaving there -or in a region with similar

"sensitivities".

Stewart Ziff :  through confusion, disorientation & moral subversion.

Ilias Marmaras :  Same as in life. By applying personal cultural characteristics to a not so familiar

environment.

Katerina Gregos :   How do you see the development of new media art? Are artists embracing

the tenets of globalization in their practice, or are they using their

practice and networks to dissect, resist and re-work the dictates of

globalization and a homogenised global media culture?

Alex Spyropoulos :   The homogenised global media culture is a reality. The transformation of this

media culture bi-directional ( Center , Periphery) is what has great importance.

Specifically at the Balkan periphery the amalgam of the newly imported media and the

old soviet approach creates a new language that remains immuned from the pluralism of

the accelerated west media production but it also

retains a skepticism towards the propaganda. However, this language has difficulties

expressing itself because it is astonished by this new era. The intention may be the

complete imitation of the western method, nonetheless there are many cases that are

between the two and some others that completely refuse to collaborate.

Stewart Ziff :  The matter of globalization is irrelevant to the context ... except of course that the

technologies are produced and economized as a relationship between producers and

consumers within a globally distributed economy.

Ilias Marmaras :  Depends on the artists. Though, there are certainly differences at the perception and

the use of new media in United States and in Europe.

Katerina Gregos :   How do you see the aesthetics of new media art? How would you describe

the new aesthetic possibilities, which have arisen as a result?

Alex Spyropoulos :  The aesthetics of new media art are based on a mixture of the military , advertising,

software and film industries. It is very difficult to overpass these industries and focus on

what is art. Most of the new media artists are influenced by the tools that they are using.

On the other hand the options are so many and the last two decades are not enough for the

creators to mature.

Stewart  Ziff  :   the aesthetic potential rests in the possibility of shifting the gaze of the viewer

from passive observation to active engagement. aesthetic consideration is in flux being no

longer engaged in the formal consideration of idea and expression defined through static

iconography, heroes and certainty in form.

Ilias Marmaras :   If modernism failed finally to give an essence to the subject, that overpasses the

network of power relations, which define that subject, new media practices seem to

imprison it, in that game in long terms.

Stewart Ziff :   to render potentially obsolete practices that invest in fixed, static & socially

detached aesthetic experience.

Ilias Marmaras :   I don’t know the long-term consequences of the computerization of aesthetics

but for the moment the ‘’poetic’’ essential element so well known in Europe, seems to

give its place to the mechanic. But this shift is a much vaster phenomenon. Just to look at

the downgrading of human sciences in favor of the so called technological ones , one gets

a flavor of the future to come.

Stelios Gianoulakis :  Offering immence pottential for analysis, realisation and comunication of art,

new technologies don’t really change much, as far as low level processes are concerned.

Paradigmatic shifts and unexplored areas may be attractive and influential but only by

shedding new light to ancient problems.

  Katerina Gregos :  In an art world still very much dominated by physical objects, is

there a future for net art?

Andy Deck :  It's not physical objects that threatens the health of net art, it's the media

entertainment industry. But perhaps this is not the right question.

In a world so thoroughly dominated by war and environmental collapse, is there really a

future for art?

Stewart Ziff :  the question is best answered with a question ... "in an art world exhausted with

the suspension of ideas of old in 'new' objects - for how long will there still be investment

in the continued accumulation of objects ?"

Ilias Marmaras :  Capital's production today has shifted from material labor and controlled time

production, to the immaterial labor of the networks (mostly linguistic production

processes) that occurs 24 hours per day and recognises no specific locale. Any attempt to

control this given situation with the modernistic meanings of control on time and space is

a waste of (time and space) if not tricky.

I think that the division between physical objects and virtual ones proves a luck of

adaptation of an art scene that try to uses Newtonian tools to control the speed of light

that creates the global real-time.

Stelios Gianoulakis :  It would be like asking if there is future for poetry in a world dominated by

architecture..